$765M isn’t end for NFL, says Trumka

The National Football League’s $765 million settlement with retired
players “is not the end of the discussion” over concussion-related brain
injuries, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told The Hill in an
interview.

Trumka, whose federation includes
the NFL Players Association, compared football players to coal miners who get
black lung disease and said more needs to be done to protect them.

He also suggested future
litigation could be filed against the league, which in August agreed to a
settlement that would cap payments to former players who now suffer from
dementia at $3 million.

“Aspect one is preventing new
stuff from happening, new concussions, so you protect the players that are
there from getting the same injuries that the other players did and then you
should compensate players that are already injured and that will be a constant
battle, a continuous battle,” said Trumka, who played football in high school.

He compared the NFL to other
employers who deny involvement in workplace-related injuries.

“They say deny, deny, deny. That’s
what every employer does. That’s what coal companies do. That’s what steel
companies do. That’s what all of them do,” he said.

“They deny, deny, deny until the
science and the facts are so overwhelming, then they will figure out a way to
make it work. They should be focusing on how to prevent these diseases so you
could not have the problem out into the future, but generally, they don’t.”

Despite his criticism of the NFL,
Trumka said he wouldn’t have advised his son, who played college football at
Cornell, to take up a different sport.

“I love football. I truly love
football,” he said. “I hope we are able to overcome this and I think there’s no
reason we can’t.”

The combativeness Trumka brings to
the discussion about the NFL is familiar to friends and foes alike.

Since becoming the AFL-CIO’s
president in 2009, Trumka has battled the rise of the Tea Party movement, and
at times his allies in the Obama White House.

The federation was openly
frustrated when the White House offered extensions and adjustments for ObamaCare to businesses and the Catholic church but nothing to its
allies in labor who wanted the administration to provide tax subsidies to union
health plan holders.

The administration denied the
request even after a public scolding from the AFL-CIO at its convention in
September, though it later proposed regulations that could ease fees union
plans would be required to pay under ObamaCare.

Trumka insisted his relationship
with the White House is good and said things have improved under Denis McDonough, who took over as White
House chief of staff in February.

He said McDonough took the
AFL-CIO’s concerns “very seriously” and “started moving stuff.”

Still, Trumka’s frustration with
the White House was easy to spot in the hourlong interview.

He noted that his federation began
making complaints about the healthcare law two years ago, but it made little
ground with the White House.

When a fight between the White
House and religious conservatives flared up over the birth control mandate in
the healthcare law, the administration dealt with it. When private employers
complained about the requirement that they offer their workers insurance, it
was delayed.

“Ours was bubbling up and bubbling
up and I kept saying ‘do you want it to end up this way?’ and ‘no, no, no’ [was
the response],” Trumka said. “We kept working through it but we weren’t making
the progress.”

At its convention, the AFL-CIO
passed a resolution that criticized the healthcare law harshly. That led to a
meeting at the White House with the president, and new regulations were
proposed the next month.

“You had to be honest about it,
and we said honestly where we were,” Trumka said. “We have problems with it. We
don’t want to bring it down; we want to make it work. Here are some things that
will help make it work.”

In a statement to The Hill,
McDonough called Trumka, 64, an “unrelenting straight shooter” singularly
focused on American workers.

The Nemacolin, Pa., native worked in the coal mines and
keeps in his office the safety lantern that belonged to his father, who was
also a miner. He was elected as the AFL-CIO’s secretary-treasurer in 1995 and
won a second term as president in September.

One of his missions is to add to
the AFL-CIO’s ranks by strengthening ties to liberal groups. That could expand
the AFL-CIO’s political influence and then boost union organizing.

Union membership has continued to
decline during Trumka’s tenure. In 2012, membership dropped to 11.3 percent of
total wage and salaried workers, down from 11.8 percent in 2011. At its
September convention, the AFL-CIO adopted a resolution that invited non-union
members to join the group.

Much of the union leader’s
attention in the next year will be on the midterm elections.

Trumka said Democrats have a “70,
75” percent chance of taking the lower chamber due to last month’s drama over
the government shutdown and debt ceiling.

“Refusing to do the normal
business of the nation is just going to keep digging them in a deeper and
deeper hole,” he says of Republicans.

He also said it’s possible the
AFL-CIO could get involved in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary.

Trumka has a campaign sticker
pasted behind his desk for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who was greeted
like a rock star at the AFL-CIO’s convention.

“I don’t think Elizabeth Warren is
going to run for president in 2016. But a candidate of her ilk, I could see us
supporting a candidate of her ilk real easily,” Trumka said.

In front of other Democrats?

“Yeah, it’s possible,” Trumka
said.

Any Democratic presidential
candidate will want labor’s support — and the earlier, the better. Asked if he
has heard from Hillary Clinton to discuss 2016 plans, Trumka laughed in
response.

“If I had gotten that call, I
wouldn’t tell you anyway,” Trumka said.

Richard Trumka

Richard L. Trumka
is the president of the AFL-CIO, a director
at the Economic Policy Institute,
and was a member of the President's
Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

Note: Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Economic Policy Institute, the Center
for American Progress, the International Rescue Committee, and the
Aspen Institute (think tank).

George
Soros is the chairman for the Foundation
to Promote Open Society, and was a supporter for the Center for American Progress.

Denis McDonough
was a senior fellow at the Center for
American Progress, and is the chief of staff; former deputy national
security adviser for the Barack Obama
administration.

Condoleezza Rice is an overseer at the International
Rescue Committee, Gene A. Washington’s
frequent social companion, a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank),
and a2008 Bilderberg conference
participant (think tank).

Gene A.
Washington is Condoleezza Rice’s
frequent social companion, and was the director of football operations for the National Football League.

L.
John Doerr is a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and was
a member of the President's Council on
Jobs and Competitiveness.

Penny S. Pritzker
was a member of the President's Council
on Jobs and Competitiveness, and is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago

James S.
Crown is a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and a member
of the Commercial Club of Chicago.

Lester Crown
was a lifetime trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and is a
member of the Commercial Club of Chicago.

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